- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Please for the love of God I hope that art style makes a comeback. Maybe Metzen will find his balls again and draw some more of that art from the SC1 manual.
Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
- Thread starter Surtur
- Start date
robobobo
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2014
A Kotaku writer, because of course it is, wrote for Wired about how D&D is still super-racist and needs to purge those darn black people orcs.
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2017
Can we get rid of Gnomes first?
Also, they never played a game in their life let alone a tabletop RPG so fuck them.
Also, they never played a game in their life let alone a tabletop RPG so fuck them.
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2017
I think I literally played a Gnome once and never used my racial abilities, so I agree.
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2017
I find that there big noses are racist towards Jewish people. They're also the most useless race out there, other than the Tinker Gnomes who should be cherished due to their quarks. Like being living bombs.
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2020
I don't think it's a coincidence that most fantasy bankers are gnomes.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Hey! In the Witcher series they're bankers. Of course I don't think going from short and big-nosed to short, hairy, and big-nosed is much of an improvement...
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
I've never played a gnome and more often than not just see them as the place to put embarrassing names. I never think of them when I create a setting or a world and I have to actually remind myself every single time they exist.
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2014
In Arcanum they're secretly breeding half ogres via systemic rape to use as bodyguards and laborers. When you uncover this you have the option to report it to the newspaper, which promptly takes your story and reveals that it's shareholders would never allow them to print it.
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2020
Something about finding who rules over you and finding who you can't make fun of.
Fucking gnomes.
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2017
I made their feet longer and added an extra joint so they could curl their feet like a fist, made them ship masters, traders, pirates, and the lord of the waves.
They have full blown armadas, some gnomes have never set foot on land. When I added airships and the like, I had it where it was a problem between halflings (the massive caravan people).
It really made for an interesting addition to the setting.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
I hope you won't mind if I steal your concept of maritime gnomes. It'd actually fit in really well with my existing setup of them as a client race for dwarves, who continue to be fiercely afraid of leaving solid ground. The fact that they're also mad scientist morons just gives me an excuse to potentially introduce skyships.
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2017
Don't forget to have the gnomish ships, backed by dwarven metallurgy and gnomish mad science, pack cannons. But don't do boring cannons, have them all carved and inlaid, looking like dragons and shit. Rockets like the ones in the Mulan cartoon (with the dragon heads). The other races consider cannons too risky.
I did it where the gnomish fleets have massive armadas out to sea, where the gnomes are born, live, and die. They might go to their island chains like Hawaii but those would be seriously closed.
Feel free to yoink it. Gnomes have always needed a better place than Hobbits Part Deux. They needed their own niche, and early (demi)human history would all be about exploiting your niche as far as possible.
Weird thing is, the one I've always had the hardest time with was elves unless I went all racial supremacist with them.
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2017
GURPS Furries exists...They want $8 for a pdf that's less than 40 pages. Before you ask, yes it's bad but I don't see anything about furry sex like you would see in an Otherverse pdf.
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
might be because a lot of people feel elves need to special in some form, even when everyone else is just "variant human", like dwarves are basically grouchy shortstacks asf.
you could make them an old race with slightly higher lifespan but still on their way out, basically "how would a sentient race knowing they going extinct deal with it?". go full emo lotr elves, nazi to preserve what they have left, or all out in blaze of glory not giving a fuck anymore (think roided up elf barbarians: the race)?
the other problem with elves is none of their stereotypes are "bad" in a way. dwarves are basically more honorable humans with a temper and a long memory for grudges, orcs are dumb but honorable brutes,
the dwarves books had your standard fare elves being conniving cunts to the point everyone mistrusted them at best, and an interesting take that they were the in danger of getting corrupted and basically turning into dark eldar complete with flesh sculpting and shit (still reminds me of dragonlance in some way, but since it's been a while since I read it might just be my imagination). so even when they were pals you always had to remember they were a ticking timebomb waiting to go off.
nothing really mindblowing new but an interesting mix (the books, while very popular over here, never really grabbed me like it did a lot of normies - and I say that as someone who likes grouchy shortstacks the most. so take it with a grain of salt. still haven't finished the fifth one and every time I try I drop it again at some point).
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- Joined
- Jan 7, 2020
There is the "They're kinda retarded" part since they live forever but are more incompetent than a human a quarter of their age and their societies somehow remain stagnant despite having scientist who should be getting millennium of experience.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
For those who missed it, another battletech themed Livestream:
This was a lot more freewheeling and was mostly just going over random mechs and vehicles in the setting. The franchise is growing on me in the sense it does combined arms better than Gundam ever did, especially every single thing that is not UC related (and even then...). We'll likely do random streams once a week, since they're more fun to set up and don't require the few hours worth of editing a recorded video has.
This was a lot more freewheeling and was mostly just going over random mechs and vehicles in the setting. The franchise is growing on me in the sense it does combined arms better than Gundam ever did, especially every single thing that is not UC related (and even then...). We'll likely do random streams once a week, since they're more fun to set up and don't require the few hours worth of editing a recorded video has.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
I actually ended up helping a buddy do some lorecrafting with elves to make them a bit more interesting, and I think they came out okay. The forest elves are goddamn hippies which is why they're stagnant as fuck (tree huggers aren't exactly easy to fix without going eco-terrorist like the fucking Asrai), the desert elves are raiders and brigands since deserts are fucking shitholes, and that goes double for fantasy ones so they're lucky to hit 100 thanks to the constant intertribal warfare, and the high elves are a bunch of grumpy old men and women who constantly complain about shit, especially newfangled shit like gunpowder. Basically stereotypical fantasy dwarves there, ironically.
Late Edit: Thanks to the short, violent lives of the desert elves, their thinking is quite human and they love new stuff that will give them an edge over the neighboring tribes. And yes, they've gone all-in on gunpowder, even the few old men and women with a century or three under their belt since bullets don't give a damn how good you are with a sword. Also elves in this setting hit full physical maturity by 30, not 100 like in most settings, so the desert elves are at no real risk of dying off... much to the chagrin of their neighbors.
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- Joined
- Sep 13, 2018
I have two "elf archetypes" I tend to fall back on.
My usual fix for wood elves is to play up the fey element to them. They're not hippie humans with pointy ears, they're somewhat alien creatures that think differently from people. And are absolutely not pacifists - they're apex predators, but, like a good, intelligent apex predator, they don't want to see their hunting grounds destroyed or their 'herds' diminished.
Think magical hardcore hunters/survivalist types.
Their mindset, culture, and religion are all intertwined. They see the world through a lense of spiritualism that blends elements of Shinto, Native American animist beliefs, and a sort of mishmash of European paganism.
They have a very small population. They live dwarf-length lives, thereabouts, not immortal, to avoid the "why aren't they hyper skilled" problem of hyper long-lived elves. As far as outsiders - they prefer to just avoid them, if they can. They're not intrinsically hostile, but they're not interested in being good neighbors or subjects. Individually you can get to know them... Some ranger/druid types might have cordial relations with them. But even then, it's as outsiders. And it's dangerous even for those people to assume they ever really understand what an elf thinks or is going to do.
These elves I usually set aside as strictly NPCs - if a person expressed interest in playing one, we would definitely be having some discussions behind the table before I agreed to it.
My usual "high elf" type is inspired somewhat by the elves in the Sovereign Stone and a bit by the Tau in 40k... and in turn by feudal Japan, which inspired both. Caste and class based society, very strict expectations, insular and arrogant, but also imperialist as all heck. If you're a subject and you fit into their system, being a not-elf is not a major social handicap... They're perfectly willing to have non-elf subjects. Technically no class or caste is closed to outsiders. Technically. But you'll never get very far into the ruling caste if you aren't an elf. The highest a not-elf can ever go is basically the mayor of a small town. Trying to go any higher, and the doors just never open. And, of course, the seat of the empire is kept in the Imperial bloodline, so is absolutely closed to non-elves anyways.
Compared to my wood elves, my high elves go the exact opposite direction. While they have a religion and a spiritual side, it's much less prominent in their day to day life, and their thinking is very "human". They're not fey-feeling at all. Much more the typical "pointy eared, arrogant human" archetype, but with the arrogance turned up, and the cheesy overpowered stuff turned down. They're not successful because they're elves, they're successful because they're ruthless, determined, and efficient.
I usually have halflings closely aligned with these elves - they're perfectly happy to be subjects, they get the protection they need, are content to mostly be farmers and merchants anyways, and socially they never really progress beyond small-ish towns anyways, so functionally they mostly are left to themselves anyways.
My usual fix for wood elves is to play up the fey element to them. They're not hippie humans with pointy ears, they're somewhat alien creatures that think differently from people. And are absolutely not pacifists - they're apex predators, but, like a good, intelligent apex predator, they don't want to see their hunting grounds destroyed or their 'herds' diminished.
Think magical hardcore hunters/survivalist types.
Their mindset, culture, and religion are all intertwined. They see the world through a lense of spiritualism that blends elements of Shinto, Native American animist beliefs, and a sort of mishmash of European paganism.
They have a very small population. They live dwarf-length lives, thereabouts, not immortal, to avoid the "why aren't they hyper skilled" problem of hyper long-lived elves. As far as outsiders - they prefer to just avoid them, if they can. They're not intrinsically hostile, but they're not interested in being good neighbors or subjects. Individually you can get to know them... Some ranger/druid types might have cordial relations with them. But even then, it's as outsiders. And it's dangerous even for those people to assume they ever really understand what an elf thinks or is going to do.
These elves I usually set aside as strictly NPCs - if a person expressed interest in playing one, we would definitely be having some discussions behind the table before I agreed to it.
My usual "high elf" type is inspired somewhat by the elves in the Sovereign Stone and a bit by the Tau in 40k... and in turn by feudal Japan, which inspired both. Caste and class based society, very strict expectations, insular and arrogant, but also imperialist as all heck. If you're a subject and you fit into their system, being a not-elf is not a major social handicap... They're perfectly willing to have non-elf subjects. Technically no class or caste is closed to outsiders. Technically. But you'll never get very far into the ruling caste if you aren't an elf. The highest a not-elf can ever go is basically the mayor of a small town. Trying to go any higher, and the doors just never open. And, of course, the seat of the empire is kept in the Imperial bloodline, so is absolutely closed to non-elves anyways.
Compared to my wood elves, my high elves go the exact opposite direction. While they have a religion and a spiritual side, it's much less prominent in their day to day life, and their thinking is very "human". They're not fey-feeling at all. Much more the typical "pointy eared, arrogant human" archetype, but with the arrogance turned up, and the cheesy overpowered stuff turned down. They're not successful because they're elves, they're successful because they're ruthless, determined, and efficient.
I usually have halflings closely aligned with these elves - they're perfectly happy to be subjects, they get the protection they need, are content to mostly be farmers and merchants anyways, and socially they never really progress beyond small-ish towns anyways, so functionally they mostly are left to themselves anyways.
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- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
See, I always liked the Eberron take on elves. Two entirely new flavors: the Valenar, nomadic Mongol elves hungry for another war because they love to fight; and the Aerenal, ancestor worshiping elves who reanimate their dead to serve (and occasionally, rule).